1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a delivery box system such as a mail box (including a post office box), a home delivery box, a cleaning box, a coin locker, and the like for delivering an article, and to a reserving method and a charging method making use of the delivery box system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, as arts for guiding a route to lockers, there is an art in which a reception device and lockers are installed in a station yard, and a route from the reception device to a loker to be used is guided by a guide section provided in the reception device, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-140632 (hereinafter, referred to as patent document 1).
In contrast, as arts for reserving an empty box, there is proposed a system for causing a deliveryman and the like to reserve an empty box of a home-delivered article accommodation locker installed in complex housing such as an apartment house and the like, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-151154 (hereinafter, referred to as patent document 2).
In the above known example, the data of the states of use and reservation of the home-delivered article accommodation locker is sent to a central management device through a telephone line, and the deliveryman directly reserves the home-delivered article accommodation locker through the telephone line using a mobile terminal device. Then, the deliveryman can unlock the locker after it is certified that he or she is the person who reserved the locker by a previously registered IC card inserted by the deliveryman or by a delivery firm's ID number input by him or her through ten keys.
Further, the applicant proposes a temporarily keeping box that can be unlocked for use by a mobile phone (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-325660, hereinafter, referred to as patent document 3) and a delivery box which can be reserved by an article-receiving person (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-150426, hereinafter, referred to as patent document 4).
However, in the known example disclosed in the patent document described above, a route to the location where the reception device is installed is not shown. Accordingly, when a deliveryman of an article and a person who receives an article are different from a person who leaves the article, there arises a troublesome problem in that the deliveryman or the article-receiving person must search the location where the lockers and the reception device are installed referring to a map based on an address and the like the deliveryman or the article-receiving person gets from the person who leaves the article.
Further, in the known example disclosed in patent document 2, a previously-registered deliveryman makes a reservation to the home-delivered article accommodation locker installed in a previously registered complex housing such as an apartment house and the like in order to deliver an article to users as article-receiving persons who are limited to the owner of the locker and to the habitants in the complex housing. Thus, it is impossible for outsiders to use the locker as article-receiving persons or deliverymen.
Furthermore, since persons who leave or receive an article in or from the accommodation locker, can ordinarily use it at no charge, the inhabitants or the owner of the apartment house cannot help bearing the expenses necessary to buy and maintain the accommodation locker. Accordingly, when it is intended to newly install a home-delivered article accommodation locker, the expenses for it must be borne by the inhabitants or the owner of the apartment house. Further, since a space in which the locker is installed must be acquired in a narrow entrance of the apartment house, it is difficult to additionally install a home-delivered article accommodation locker in an existing apartment house.
Moreover, in a system which unilaterelly is reserved or used by a deliveryman, a trouble is liable to occur because it is difficult to certify that an article-receiving person previously accepts to use a locker as a place where an article is delivered each time it is delivered, and further there is a problem in that a usage fee of the locker cannot be charged to the article-receiving person.
In addition, there is a home-delivered article box the usage fee of which is charged to a certain person (deliveryman) who leaves an article therein by a contract. In this case, when it is not apparent whether or not an article-receiving person receives an article, the person who leaves the article must go to the locker and collect the article, which naturally makes it impossible to employ a time-based usage fee system.
Further, there is a system that when a baggage is kept in a locker and the like, it is displayed on a display panel of the locker. However, since it is not directly notified to an article-receiving person and to an article-leaving person that the baggage is kept in the locker or taken out therefrom, smooth delivery of the baggage cannot be guaranteed.
Since there is not a system which allows to keep an article in a delivery box based on article delivery conditions including a payment condition to an article and to unlock the delivery box when it is confirmed that the article delivery conditions are fulfilled, it is impossible to use a locker for an article which must be delivered on the condition of cash on delivery.
Also, it cannot be said that even the arts disclosed in the patent documents 3 and 4 have not any problem. That is, these arts are disadvantageous in that since there is not a guide to the location where a usable box is installed, users such as a box-reserving person, a article-leaving paerson, a deliveryman, and an article-receiving person, who are not familiar with the location of the usable locker, must search it using a map, an address, and the like presented on the Internet, and this searching job is troublesome and time-consuming.
An object of the present invention, which has been made to solve the above problem, is to provide a delivery box system arranged such that delivery boxes are installed not only in complex housing such as apartment houses and the like but also in public locations such as the peripheries of stations, underground shopping arcades, shopping streets, and urban areas where many persons gather, a moving object can be guided to a moving destination while it is moving, an article-receiving person can easily reserve and use a delivery box, security can be improved by issuing a reservation ID number inherent to each reserving action, delivery of an article can be made on the condition of cash on delivery, and the article can be delivered after the approval of the article-receiving person is previously obtained as to an article delivery place and who bears the usage fee of the delivery box, and to a delivery box reserving method and a charging method making use of the delivery box system.